_STANFORD -- The Faculty Senate wrapped up its 25th year on Thursday,
June 10, by approving renewal of undergraduate and graduate programs in Latin
American Studies, approving a new interdisciplinary program in epidemiology,
endorsing candidates for bachelor's and advanced degrees and modifying
charges to three Academic Council committees.

The senate also gave a rousing send-off to William Northway, diagnostic
radiology and pediatrics, who chaired the senate and its Steering Committee
this year.

She saluted Northway for canceling "a record number of senate meetings,"
and for leading the body through "some long- winded and complicated votes
with fairness and thoughtfulness for all.

"You have repeatedly prevented us from getting submerged in word-smithing,
and have steered us firmly on the Northway High Road to conceptualization and
policy," Traugott said.

Both Latin American Studies programs were unanimously reauthorized for
five years, although the senate agreed with a Committee on Graduate Studies'
recommendation that the program report about several issues to its cognizant
dean in two years.

Committee chair Judith Goldstein, political science, pointed to a program
review report from Tom Wasow, linguistics, that raised questions about
student dissatisfaction and problems with the program's curriculum.

Wasow's committee said that students have difficulty fulfilling in nine
months the master's degree requirements: 40 units of coursework, including a
core curriculum, and completion of an interdisciplinary research paper. One
member of Wasow's committee dissented from the reauthorization
recommendation, based largely on student comments, Wasow told the senate.

The committee did praise the program's lectures, workshops and brown-bag
lunches at Bolivar House, and director Terry Karl's energy and leadership.
Latin American Studies, started in 1965, draws faculty from 15 academic
departments and works closely with Overseas Studies on the campus in
Santiago, Chile. It employs a full-time associate director and support staff
(2.5 FTE).

Three-quarters of the graduates go on to professional schools - medicine,
law or business - or earn doctorates. Some end up in journalism, others in
the diplomatic corps or human rights organizations.

Karl, associate professor of political science and member of the current
senate, became director of the program three years ago.

She told the senate that the program had had difficulty implementing
recommendations from its last review, which occurred in 1988. The earlier
committee "gave detailed instructions on how the core curriculum should be
structured," but this made it difficult for master's students to finish in
one year, she said.

The program had a "very distressing completion rate," she said, and many
students had to stay summer quarter to finish their papers. That was
problematic for many reasons, including the fact that faculty do field
research during the summer, she said.

The master's paper is not a thesis, which would require field research.

The curriculum has since been modified, so both the core courses and
research paper can be completed in nine months, but it still is a difficult
program, Karl said. Other similar programs require two years to earn a
master's degree, but Stanford's faculty is not large enough to expand the
program, she said.

Karl also defended the program against charges that its faculty list in
Courses and Degrees is bloated.

The senate unanimously endorsed an interdisciplinary program in
epidemiology that would begin recruiting master's and doctoral students for
fall 1994.

Epidemiology is a division in the Department of Health Research and
Policy. Its faculty would offer the degrees with help from colleagues in
gynecology and obstetrics, medicine, microbiology and immunology, neurology,
neurobiology, pathology, the Program in Cancer Biology, and the Stanford
Center for Disease Prevention. Jennifer Kelsey, chief of epidemiology, would
lead the program.

Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants of diseases
in populations. Health-related issues that would be addressed include causes
of cancers, risks and benefits of hormone replacement therapy, and how to
reduce the frequency of cardiovascular diseases. Students would be required
to have a grounding in biostatistical methods and to acquire knowledge of the
pathobiology of specific diseases.

The program initially would be supported by the Medical School, but would
eventually become self-supporting.

Asked by senators if they thought the program would become mired in a
"turf war," Kelsey and Charlotte Jacobs, senior associate dean for education
and student affairs, said they anticipated cooperation among specialists from
the various disciplines.

The senate also approved three changes recommended by its Committee on
Committees.

Starting next fall, the Committee on Undergraduate Studies and the
Committee on Academic Appraisal and Achievement each will be expanded from 10
to 11 voting members, with the additional person being a lecturer or senior
lecturer. Education Professor Myra Strober, chair of the Committee on
Committees, said her group sought the change because lecturers and senior
lecturers "teach a large proportion of our undergraduates and, therefore,
will have useful insights to offer these committees."

Strober also asked that the charge to the Committee on Research be
expanded to give that body responsibility for monitoring the indirect-cost
rate.

That proposal originally was made by the Senate Ad Hoc Committee on the
Structure and Functions of Academic Council Committees (STANCOM), headed by
electrical engineering Professor Joseph Goodman.

His group made the suggestion, Goodman said, because it noticed during its
study of committees that none played any role in monitoring the overhead
rate.

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